Friday, January 25, 2008

We are barefooted...

...because God knocked our socks off Sunday at church.

Brian has planned for a while to start a life group on Sunday Mornings at church. He decided (with a lot of help from God) that it should start out as a marriage class. I agreed to "help" (usually running my mouth when I shouldn't...smile, I like to show the members of the class how the Spaghetti really works). Brian decided on this study and we actually fit the description perfectly. Men can only communicate in one box at a time (waffle square). Women are "everywhere" when they talk. Their spaghetti touches other subjects and they transition smoothly from one thing to another. I tend to try to open all Brian's boxes at one time with my spaghetti speaking self.

When Brian ordered books, we agreed that our goal of 8 books (8 couples) was a good number. We thought we were being optimistic with that goal. We (Brian) baked muffins the night before while I took care of children (bathing, feeding, putting them to bed, and picking out clothing for Sunday). We went to church on Sunday Morning with GREAT excitement for the new opportunities to meet new people and learn about their lives and marriages. Brian was so excited he could hardly sleep (I never have trouble sleeping).

We arrived early on Sunday morning (8 AM, Brian had praise team practice). While he was practicing, I traipsed all over the church with two children (one on foot the other in her huge, heavy car seat) getting the classroom ready and making copies of the first lesson "in case" we had more than the 8 couples we were hoping for.

At 9:10 AM Brian went to pray with praise team and I stayed in the room in case their were some early arrivers. Brian came back in at about 9:20 AM and no one was in the classroom except me and two little ones (the look on his face was that of a tad bit of disappointment). I took the kiddos downstairs to their respective classrooms and came back upstairs to class to find a classroom full of people standing around talking. I didn't realize how many people were in the room until people started to sit down and they filled up all the chairs. We had to go get more chairs and I had to go run more copies (I was praising God all the way down the hall).

While I was making copies I saw at least another three couples that were headed to our classroom. I couldn't hardly contain myself. We ended up with 31 people (some came without their spouse). We were totally shocked. God proves himself again and again to us. I don't know why we are so surprised when He gives us more than what we expected. It just shows us how small we think and how BIG God does things.

We have couples in the class from young to older (don't want to say old). Their is an engaged couple to a couple that has been married for 30 years and everything in between. Our first assignment in class was for each couple to explain "their" story, where they met and how long they have been married. We have relationships that sparked from Jr. high school (Brian and I), to church relationships, co-worker relationship, gym relationship, Internet relationships (several), and at least one bar romance.

We look forward to getting to know these couples and hopefully direct them in the path of what God wants for their marriages and how we should communicate with one another.

Wow!!! It is GREAT that God cares so much for our marriages.

Disclaimer: I want you all to understand that Brian and I don't pretend to have a perfect marriage (there are none). We do, however, have a PASSION to see couples LOVE to be married. There is nowhere I would rather be than to be married to Brian. I hope we can teach people to want to communicate and LOVE being married (not just live together).

You will probably hear more about our lovely life group in the coming weeks. Love to ALL!!!

Oh, Alice! I so much wish I could be in your class!!! I love being married but I want to do all I can to learn God's plan for our marriage. I think I'm going to go to Lifeway and peruse the book and see if it's something I need to purchase!